Slinkies and Secrets
by imdeadsothere
Summary: Hermione Granger decides to unleash a giant slinkie upon the school while she, Harry, and a small Hufflepuff fourth year named Zoie run along behind it delving the teachers made-up secrets to the world. At least, they think they're made up. ONE-SHOT.


Hermione stood at the stop of the staircase, staring down at all the little heads of all the little people bobbing up and down as they made their way up and down the moving staircases. A large, silver slinky sat in her hands as she twisted it around and played with it.

"I dunno Harry, d'you think I should enlarge it?" Hermione asked her friend, Harry, who stood right beside her.

"I don't even know what you're doing," Harry replied, staring over the hand railing, down all seven floors. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I'm going to unleash this upon the stairs," she said triumphantly, holding the slinky out.

"What's that?" Harry asked, eyeing the object suspiciously. "And what does it do?" Hermione couldn't believe him, the only reason she had brought Harry instead of Ron was that she was under the assumption that Harry would actually know what the heck a slinky was.

"It's a slinky, duh," Hermione said, a slight attitude intercepting her voice as it left her mouth.

"Never heard of it," Harry said. Hermione looked down as her slinky.

"Well, I suppose it's not exactly the kind of toy Dudley would play with," she said, attempting to come up with an excuse for why Harry had never heard of a slinky. "It involves too much movement."

"So, what does it do?" Harry asked.

"Erm, stretch… and go down stairs."

"That's it?" Harry gave her a confused look.

"Yes, that's it," Hermione sighed, "but it looks really cool when it goes down the stairs. And most people here aren't going to know what the heck it is, plus the stairs move so it'll be even more cool. And I was thinking of enchanting it too, you know, I just think I'd be funny to see how people react when a giant metal slinky comes catapulting down the stairs straight at them. They'll probably freak."

"Whaddabout slinkies?" Hermione and Harry both turned quickly around to see who the newcomer was. A small Hufflepuff girl stood not to far away from them watching them.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, in a way that Hermione considered rather rude but the girl didn't seem to mind.

"I'm Zoie," the girl said, she skipped forward and leaned up against the handrail, like a little girl at a zoo. Out of the corner of her eye Hermione saw Harry held his hand out, ready to catch Zoie if she fell.

"And you are?" Zoie asked, turning her head around.

"I'm Hermione," Hermione said, "And this is my friend Harry, what year are you in?"

"Fourth, you?" Zoie got down off the banister and turned to face them.

"We're both seventh," Hermione replied.

"So, what were you saying about a slinky?" Zoie asked.

"Nothing," Hermione and Harry quickly said.

"I promise not to tell," Zoie said.

"No, really, we weren't talking about anything," Harry said.

"Yeah you were, I heard you, so what were you going to do, throw and enlarged slinky down the stairs?"

"Yes, actually we where," Hermione said, giving up the lying approach.

"Cool, but you have to make it really big, I mean like, bigger than you so that it's like this mongo thing that comes flying down the stairs, tha'd be soo cool."

"You done it before?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, once, when I was three, I unleashed a giant slinky in a muggle government building, my mom doesn't let me have slinkies anymore," Zoie leaned up against the hand railing again.

"I can see why."

"Is there any purpose to this?'

"Does for kicks and giggles count as a purpose?"

"It sure does,' come on, let's go let it go." Zoie jumped down from the banister and walked over to where the stairs began.

"You have to wait till the stairs are at their most crowded," Zoie said, "If you wait a minute they'll be jam packed. You should start enlarging the slinky right now."

"Oh, yeah, sure," Hermione sat the slinky down on the floor and began enlarging it until it was about the width of the stairs and about Harry's height.

"Damn that's big," Zoie noted, looking at it.

"I like it," Hermione noted.

"So do I," Zoie said cheerfully.

"So now what?" Harry asked, looking at the ginormus slinky.

"We unleash it of course," Zoie said grinning. "And we have to follow it, so we're going to get a lotta exercise. At the beginning it'll go slow because people wont really see it and it'll take them a while to move, but they will, and as it gets farther the people will move faster, cuz they know it's coming. It helps if you scream something totally random while you follow it."

"Like what?" Harry asked. Zoie shrugged.

"Anything weird, almost as if you were in a parade… for weirdoes."

"In a way, we are in a parade for weirdoes," Hermione noted. Zoie grinned even wider, excellent.

"So, we're going to push this down, and it's going to go down the stairs in that weird way that slinkies go down stairs, right?" Harry asked, summing up the plan.

"Yes that's the p…" Hermione trailed off, "hey, how do you know how slinkies go down stairs?" she said, pointing an accusing finger at Harry, "I thought you'd never heard of slinkies!"

"Dude, he's Harry Potter not George Washington, he _can_ tell a lie," Zoie said, trying to push the slinky into position.

"Isn't George Washington some American president?" Hermione asked. Zoie nodded.

"Yarp, he's the first, and he can't tell lies, at least that's the story."

"Oh, cool."

"Here, let me help you with that," Harry said, quickly coming forward and pushing the slinky into place.

"So, what random thing are we going to scream as we run along behind it?" Hermione asked.

"I dunno, just scream out the names of kitchen utensils or something," Zoie said, "or you could see how many countries you can name."

"So, we'll be running down the stairs waving our arms and screaming Fork! Spoon! Spatula! Canada!" Harry said, doing a mini imitation of them running down the stairs waving their arms and screaming which sent both Zoie and Hermione into fits of laughter.

"That's exactly what we'll be doing," Zoie said once she'd calmed down a bit.

"Excellent!" Harry grinned impishly, "Let's get this show started then."

"Sheesh Harry, I've never known this side of you," Hermione said as she moved up to the slinky.

"And you'll hopefully never meet it again," Harry said, "Okay you two, on the count of three you two push, I'll go around on the other side and pull."

"Aye aye captain," Zoie said, saluting. Harry rolled his eyes and climbed around the banister to the other side.

"Hey, wait a minute," Hermione said suddenly, Harry's head peeked around the giant slinky.

"What happens if the stairs change?" she asked. Harry grinned.

"In that case my dear Hermione, we jump," Harry replied. "You two ready? One, two, three GO!" Hermione pushed on the top of the slinky with Zoie to get it going. It went, its first step went right over Harry's head and past them. It was slow at first.

"Come on, let's go chase it!" Harry said eagerly, running after the slinky with Hermione and Zoie hot on his heels. They hit the first group of people, all of whom moved out of the way.

"Random German cyborgs!" Zoie screamed back to them as they ran past.

"Bigfoot!" Hermione called as they continued to move forward.

"Professor Snape likes to dance naked in the great hall every Thursday after dinner!" Harry called. Zoie joined in with his teacher bashing.

"Professor McGonagall is secretly an exotic dancer!" Hermione just laughed at the two of them.

"Professor Dumbledore is actually Gandalf and he's just taking a vacation!" she called, joining in with the two.

"Professor Flitwick is part garden gnome!"

"Professor Hagrid isn't part Bigfoot, he _is_ Bigfoot!"

"Elvis lives! He's just disguised as professor Slughorn!"

They just continued to run and scream until the very thing that Hermione was dreading came to be, the staircase began to move. She slowed down a bit. The slinky went over the edge.

"Come on Hermione!" Harry and Zoie called to her in unison. Harry reached back and took Hermione's hand.

"We're only one story up," he told her, "let's go!" And hand in hand, the two of them leapt over the edge.

-

The teachers all sat silent and serious in the staffroom, awaiting the arrival of the last of their colleagues. When Dumbledore arrived he had the same serious expression as the rest.

"I suppose you have all heard about the slinky incident?" he asked gravely. They all nodded.

"And you have all heard what it was those students called when they ran down the stairs?" Once again, they all nodded.

Snape stood up.

"Yes Severus?" Dumbledore asked, addressing the former Potions master.

"I would like to ask the question that I know is on everybody's mind," Snape began, "I would like to ask, how the hell did they find out about us!"


End file.
